1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for forming a seamless tubular knit on a rectilinear knitting machine comprising two sections for guiding the knitting needles, means of selecting these knitting needles, carriages for displacing the selected knitting needles and members for guiding the knitting yarn, and to a rectilinear knitting machine for implementing this method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional rectilinear knitting machines could possibly knit seamless tubular articles, with a few modifications, especially articles formed from two tubular elements joined into a single tubular element, such as a pair of pants. However, they are not able to produce such articles with a sufficiently dense knit to make trouser fabric. Nor do they allow production under economically viable conditions, since the production rate would be so much smaller. Circular machines do not allow either the production of tubular elements side by side, or the production of tubular elements of variable diameters, or else elements which depend on the uniformity of the knit, by varying, for example, the tension of the yarn, the density of the stitches, etc.
The aim of the present invention consists in producing a seamless tubular knit on a rectilinear knitting machine, capable of overcoming, at least in part, the aforementioned drawbacks.
To this end, the object of the present invention is first of all a method of forming a seamless tubular knit on a rectilinear knitting machine of the aforementioned type, as defined by claim 1.
Preferably, this method relates to the formation of two tubular bodies then joined into a single tubular body, making it possible to produce a seamless pair of pants.
The subject of this invention is also a knitting machine for implementing the knitting method, as defined in claim 3, and a pair of pants, boxer shorts or tights obtained by implementing this method.
This invention has the advantage of allowing the manufacture of a novel product under favorable economic conditions. A seamless pair of pants or boxer shorts, whatever the size, is in fact an unknown article, given that it is not yet known how to produce it.
It should be noted that one of the advantages of the method which is the subject of the invention resides in the fact that the diameter of the tubular part or parts of this article may vary so as to give the latter the desired shape.
In fact, as will be realized during the following description, the knitting method according to the invention cannot be implemented on a conventional rectilinear knitting machine, but requires a novel rectilinear machine concept, thus explaining that it is only by imagining a novel knitting concept, radically different from that usually implemented in rectilinear knitting machines, that the invention has been able to see the light of day. Indeed, it was necessary to create a concept making it possible to knit two different knitted webs, one on each section, while continually joining them by a transfer of the knitting yarn from one section to the other, thus allowing the formation of a seamless tubular element. Starting from this principle, it becomes possible to imagine the simultaneous production of two tubular elements side by side, which can then be joined into a single tubular element by selecting the needles separating the two tubular elements.
The invention will be better understood on referring to the following description and to the appended drawings which illustrate, schematically and by way of example, two implementational modes of the method which is the subject of the present invention, relating to two embodiments of the machine which is also subject of this invention.